John Hogan, President/CEO Clear Channel Radio

Earlier this week Clear Channel formally announced the iHeartRadio Music Festival hosted by Ryan Seacrest and billed as “the biggest live concert festival in radio history.” The event celebrates the launch of the new version of CC’s iHeartRadio digital service. President/CEO John Hogan spent some exclusive time with FMQB to discuss the initiative, the event and the digital marketplace

By Fred Deane

John Hogan has been at the helm of Clear Channel Radio as President/CEO for nine years and has led the company through many evolutions during the past decade. The company has assumed the leadership industry role in many areas and has consistently fashioned itself as always being in step with technology and at times pacing the industry curve. As the company prepares to launch the new iHeartRadio digital service with its star-studded two day iHeartRadio Music Festival, it has created perhaps one of the largest radio events in the history of the medium. John Hogan describes, “Building up to the festival, we will be presenting the biggest national promotion in radio history.” The company will utilize its full arsenal of 850 radio assets along with its broad technology platform to deliver the message on its prized proprietary digital service.

This has been an all consuming undertaking by the company, you can feel the energy from station to station. What has an initiative of this magnitude meant to the employees of Clear Channel Radio?
We have a great team of people at Clear Channel and it has been a lot of work, but it’s also been a lot of fun. One of the byproducts of all of this is the unbelievably strong level of passion excitement and enthusiasm throughout our entire organization. Our people are truly excited that the industry and the world can see what a great organization we have, and witness our ability to be able to pull off an event that is really over the top and communicate in a way that showcases the power of our platform. The biggest piece is all about celebrating a digital product that is going to redefine digital radio, iHeartRadio.
It’s a really exciting time for reasons that are fundamentally important not just for Clear Channel but for the radio industry, the music industry and the recording artists. This is a really, really big deal.

Given the quantity and quality of talent amassed how significant were the contributions of your programmers in helping assemble the talent and fuel the energy and ideas behind this massive event?
The contribution is hard to quantify because without the incredible team of programmers we have none of this would have happened. It starts with the programmers at every one of our stations across the country who focus on having a great product, and who love the music and the artists. They provided the fundamental base from which people like Tom Poleman, John Ivey, Clay Hunnycutt, Gene Romano and many more, were really able to work pretty quickly and very effectively to communicate the message. They knew we were doing something that nobody else can do and we were going to do it in a way that nobody else can do it.
          It really says two things. First off, we have a great team of programmers and I couldn’t be more proud of them. The more powerful message is that none of these artists had to do this. They’re all doing it because they believe in radio and they understand the power radio has and the importance of radio to their success. That makes it even more exciting.

Why is it important for Clear Channel to become much more than a radio company and more of a fully integrated media and entertainment company in audience perception and product execution?
It comes down to what I think is a really simple strategy, not an easy one to implement, but simple in concept. It’s not necessarily a digital strategy, it’s a brand strategy. Simply put, we want to be where our listeners are and we want be able to give them what they want and what they expect from us on whatever platform is accessible to them. Technology has given consumers more choice and more control. We look at technology as an opportunity, and digital in particular as a huge opportunity. Today it’s not a big piece of the overall audio pie, 3-4% of all listening is done digitally, but it’s going to get bigger. We know that people want to be able to get our brands and hear our personalities and to have that radio experience, that very intimate personable one-to-one connection. They want to have it irrespective of where they are.
          We see making 850 of our radio stations available on the iHeratRadio product as just fundamentally important. We’re now able to give those consumers the opportunity, as a prime feature, the choice to control and customize the experience for themselves. We see that as really important as well. But it’s all based on the brand strategy and about making sure that the relationship we have with listeners and the radio experience listeners have with our stations and personalities is available on whatever distribution platform they choose to take advantage of.

Scale obviously plays a major role in your ability to aggregate such a large audience for events like this. How important is it for CC and other large radio groups to maintain if not grow the scale of markets and stations in order to leverage multi-media initiatives of this nature?
Clear Channel is unique. It is in a class of one. No one has the ability to provide the kind of footprint on a national basis that we have with the ability to activate and engage on a local level. We have a big platform. We also have an unparalleled set of systems and structure that allows us to have 850 radio stations deliver the same message at the same time, allowing us to put together an eight week promotion that will run across those stations and run flawlessly. No one else could pull this off. Our closest competitors are just not that close. We are unlike anyone else. What we have focused on in the last couple of years is making sure that our local brands are as good as they can be and we have great brands in every market. Now we have the opportunity to link those brands together in a number of different ways and to give both consumers and advertisers something nobody else can.

What has the advertising community’s response been to this initiative?
We have been out talking with advertisers and we’ve been talking at a very high level with a number of large national advertisers and the experience, while different from situation to situation, is similar in that every one of them is surprised, impressed and intrigued by the power of radio. They just don’t realize how viable radio has remained, and they’re really intrigued by what Clear Channel can do for them. So as we begin putting this together and talking with different advertisers and begin to share a little bit about the concert and a little bit about the iHeratRadio product, we’ve been getting a great response. It’s been really gratifying to hear people say, “Hey I didn’t know radio could do that. I didn’t know radio was that strong. I didn’t know that we could get that kind of national reach and local activation.” It’s been really rewarding and exciting and in a sense I think radio is really beginning to be rediscovered, if you will.

How important is it for radio to take more of a leadership role in technology with proprietary digital initiatives of application regarding consumer needs?
At Clear Channel it has been and continues to be very important. We were an early investor in satellite and still to this day own a piece of XM. We have been a huge proponent of HD Radio and have made a multi-million dollar investment in making sure that the distribution platform for us is as robust as it can be. We have over 500 of our stations now broadcasting in HD. We look at digital the same way. It comes down to a fundamental view that we have of technology being an opportunity rather than a threat. Most recently, if you look at our acquisition of ThumbPlay, I believe it speaks volumes about our intentions to remain at the forefront of discovery, evolution and development, not only on the programming and sales sides, which we always have been, but also on the technology side.

How do assess the ongoing permeation of the various Pure Play tech companies getting deeper and deeper into radio’s space?
I don’t think any of the Pure Play companies have gotten into radio’s space with any consequence whatsoever. Perceptually they’ve done a great job of marketing themselves. Pandora’s a great feature if you like creating a playlist. It’s a very interesting technology, but it’s not radio. It’s a juke box. It’s a robotic, almost clinical execution of playlist creation. We think it’s an interesting feature and one that will absolutely be part of the new iHeart radio product, and we’ve expanded on that. Given our experience, insight and technology we’ve made it an even more interesting feature. But it’s just that, it’s a feature. It’s not a radio experience by any stretch of the imagination. It certainly isn’t a sustainable business model and when you think about Pandora, they simply can’t compete with us. They don’t have the platform or the resources. They have an interesting feature. We enjoy a platform that is so robust that it allows us to incorporate a feature like that, and actually enhance the feature without having to worry about the business model.

How important is the music industry to Clear Channel?
The music industry has been and continues to be enormously important to us. We have a mutually dependent relationship. A healthy strong robust music industry is really important to us. There was a period of time, like a lot of industries and a lot of companies, where we had to keep our head down a little bit and focus on getting through some tough economic times, and we were more internally focused. Over the last 6-8 months we made a concerted effort to reestablish and reinvigorate the relationships that we’ve enjoyed, not only with the labels but with artists and talent management as well. We love the music business. We love the performers and we love to see them succeed. We also know that we can play a big part in that success and we know that a healthy music business is good for the radio business. I don’t think it gets any more important than that.

[eQB Content by Fred Deane]